Patients suffering from low back pain are typically placed on an exercise regime by their physician or by a physical therapist assigned to work with the patient. The exercise regime is designed to strengthen the patient's back muscles, to improve the patient's overall range of motion, and to decrease the patient's level of pain. Unfortunately, motivating a patient to comply with a prescribed exercise regime can be difficult.
Lack of patient motivation to comply with prescribed exercises is a hindrance to any therapy regimen. Statistics have shown that a motivational program combined with the right exercise program can increase patient compliance by as much as 30%. It is desirable, therefore, to provide a device or system that motivates a patient to perform his or her prescribed exercises.
In addition to lack of motivation, another problem that arises relates to a patient's actual performance of the exercises. If a patient performs the prescribed exercises incorrectly, little or no benefit will be gained from exercising and the full benefits of the therapy regime will not be realized. In addition, improperly performed exercises can, in some cases, do more harm than good. It is desirable, therefore, to have a device or system that can provide feedback to the patient regarding the manner in which they are performing their exercises. Preferably, the feedback will be provided to the patient in real-time during the exercise workout to allow the patient to correct and adjust how they are doing the exercises so that the prescribed exercises are properly performed.
In general, self reported information concerning a patient's compliance with a prescribed exercise regime has limited value. If objective information were made readily available to the prescribing physician or physical therapist, a patient's therapy could be monitored and modified with much more certainty, and the effectiveness of each exercise could be quantitatively analyzed. Patient distance from their clinic would also become less relevant, since frequent visits to the clinic would become less necessary. A device and/or system of this type would be of great value to doctors and physical therapists.
Unfortunately, there is often no way for a physician or physical therapist to know if a patient is complying with the prescribed exercise regime or if the patient is performing their exercises correctly. It is desirable, therefore, to have an apparatus or system that provides information to physicians and physical therapists regarding a patient's compliance with a prescribed exercise program. It is also desirable to have a device or system that can provide information regarding how well the patient is performing the prescribed exercises. Preferably, the apparatus or system will allow for real-time monitoring of the patient during exercising and will also record the desired information and make it available for later use and analysis by the physician or physical therapist.
Another problem with providing a device that can be used during exercise relates to the very nature of the exercises themselves. Exercises prescribed for patients suffering from low back pain can generally be broken down into two categories, namely strengthening exercises and stretching exercises. Strengthening exercises serve to increase muscle strength while stretching exercises serve to increase range of motion.
Examples of strengthening exercises that are typically prescribed for patients suffering from low back pain include four point extension exercises, side exercises, general upright exercises, prone exercises, and bridging exercises. For many of the strengthening exercises, it is desirable for the patient to maintain his or her lumbar spine in a stable and static position. Thus, for these types of exercises, it is generally desirable to have a device or system that can detect small movements in a patient's spine.
Examples of stretching exercises that are typically prescribed for low back pain patients include back bending, the cat stretch, and the hip extension. For these types of exercises, it is desirable for the patient to increase their range of motion and therefore these types of exercises do not usually involve a static and stable spine. To the contrary, it is desirable for the patient to have a relatively large range of both flexion/extension motion and lateral motion while performing the stretching exercises.
It is desirable, therefore, to have a device that can accurately measure both small incremental movements of a patient's spine as well as spine position over a relatively large range of motion. Preferably, the device can accurately measure the degree of patient bending in both the midsagittal (median) and coronal (frontal) planes between the sacrum and the thoracic region of the spine. In other words, it is desirable to have a device that can detect, monitor and measure flexion/extension and lateral movements of a patient's spine.
It is desirable to have a device or system that can also be used in other areas where detecting, monitoring, measuring and recording an individual's movement or range of motion is important, including recreational sports, such as golf, and industrial activities involving repetitive spinal motion.
Although many prior art devices have been developed for detecting and monitoring a patient's spine movement, they all suffer from one or more problems or deficiencies that have kept them from being commercialized for wide spread home usage by patients. Generally, the known prior art devices are either too complicated for home use by patients or they are too expensive to be generally provided to patients for home use. It is also desirable therefore to have a device or system that is simple in both construction and use. The device will desirably be simple enough to allow for operation by a patient in a non-clinical setting (i.e., without a therapist's supervision) such as at the patient's home. Preferably, the cost of the device or system will also be such that the device or system can be provided for wide scale distribution to patients for use both in a clinical setting and at home.